


the sun promises to shine

by kingiamesbible



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Pining, i guess??, it's just arthur slowly fallin in love i guess!, lots of references to the sun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 20:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9565853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingiamesbible/pseuds/kingiamesbible
Summary: there's a boy who works at the library that arthur can't stop thinking about.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is an Old fic but i was going through stuff on my google docs and found this lil gem which i thought was kinda cute so! it's all original text from 2015 and i like to think i've improved a little since then so (dennis reynolds voice) this doesn't represent me but i hope u enjoy it anyway
> 
> title inspired by a poem by atticus

There was something about him that kept Arthur coming back. He didn't go to the library often, and didn't plan on making it a regular thing, but Merlin was just so intriguing. After a while he couldn't help himself. 

The first time he went there with his friends, it was only out of obligation. They had exams coming up, and despite their apparent nonchalant and dismissive attitude towards all things  _ university _ , they all actually did want to do well in them. So they headed to the local library to get some studying done. 

No one seemed to visit the library anymore. It was funded by the city council so there was no fear of it shutting down, but most of the dusty volumes never moved from where they sat on the shelves. People usually only came in to browse very briefly or because it was where they had arranged to meet someone, but they never stuck around for long. The view from inside was glorious; all four walls of the huge hall were entirely glass, so you could sit in the centre of it and see a different view from each angle. The tall, off-white buildings of the city stretched on outside the library, flanked by trees and bustling with crowds of people talking and laughing. It was strange how a place surrounded by such activity could feel so lonely, even though the two worlds were divided only by very thin glass. 

Arthur's friends were not rude or disrespectful, even though they could be rowdy and even gave off a nasty vibe sometimes, so when the dark-haired librarian asked them to keep the noise down, they obliged without question. He was a skinny boy of about their age, with very light freckles and thick-frames glasses, who did not seem at all afraid of the group of considerably larger students. When they nodded at him and whispered apologies, he smiled warmly, and for the next few days Arthur thought nothing of the flood of heat that smile had caused in his chest. He ignored the fact that the young man's face was in his mind quite a lot while he sat through lectures, and didn't seem to realise just how often he would look up from his place next to Leon at the library's centre table to glance at him standing at the desk organising a pile of novels. It didn't seem like a big deal to him that his stomach jumped whenever the librarian smiled at the group of friends coming in to settle down and read up on something. It  _ wasn't  _ really a big deal.

Only it didn't stop. And even when he was at home, having dinner with his father and sister, he found himself thinking of him laughing at a stupid joke Gwaine told or about how his glasses slid down his nose constantly while he scribbled something on paper. While he lay in bed, staring at his ceiling, he could see the warm blue eyes, crinkling at the corners when he greeted them every afternoon with the same, charming smile. He thought about telling Morgana about it, but then decided it was probably nothing, and he was being silly. 

Each day, the feeling grew a little, and Arthur found himself wanting to know more about the dark-haired librarian. He started off with something simple, and found out his name was Merlin. That name kept repeating itself in his head for the rest of the day, but he still brushed it off as nothing. Soon enough, as the days went on, he pieced together new information. He discovered, with help from his friends, that he lived with a man called Gaius in a small flat on the outskirts of the city, and he was studying philosophy at university, and he liked very milky coffee with lots of sugar and his favourite colour was blue. With each new find, Arthur felt an odd sense of success, like he was unravelling a mystery or adding pieces to a puzzle. For reasons he could not yet explain, he yearned for more insight into Merlin's world, and something within him wanted desperately to become a part of it. Merlin had, whether intentionally or not, become a part of his after all. 

For quite a few nights, Arthur had spent countless hours awake and thinking; trying to put a name to what he was feeling. Never before had he wanted to get to know a person so badly. Usually he was eloquent, and could speak his mind without trouble, but as soon as he was faced with Merlin, his words sounded jumbled even to himself in his mind, and his voice often got lost in his throat before it reached his mouth. His friends, he was certain, had noticed this, although they never asked him about it and so he dismissed it. But with each visit to the library, he found his feeling of attachment becoming deeper, and he began to do things without really realising, like sit on the desk to watch Merlin doodle on scraps of paper, or ask him about the book he was reading, or sit with him at the back of the hall while he organised a series back into the correct order. Sometimes they saw each other in the street, and Arthur would find himself blushing when they made eye contact, and his chest would fill with the odd warmth when Merlin smiled at him. Even when Arthur began to notice that Merlin always sat closer to him than he did with any of his other friends when he was explaining something, or that Merlin's hand often brushed against his while they were discussing something, or Merlin's smile was considerably dreamier when he listened to Arthur talk, he still didn't know what it was he felt towards him. It was a relatively new experience, and it was nice, but he couldn't put his finger on what exactly it was, and often became distant because of that. Often he would stay late at the library, writing up an essay or ploughing through the last few pages of his course books, only to look up and realise that all his friends had left silently, and he was alone with Merlin. At these times, there was always an exchange of smiles and faint goodbyes before Arthur left Merlin to close up. It was never anything more, but it still made Arthur's head spin. 

Going to the library started being the highlight of Arthur's day. Him and his friends didn't have set days of the week to go, but getting a text from one of them saying  _ library this afternoon?  _ or similar would give him something to look forward to after a long day of work. The thought of stepping into the huge glass hall was almost exciting, and the idea of seeing Merlin made his stomach flip. Of course, he wasn't there all the time, and Arthur had a hard time quelling his disappointment when someone else was working the desk upon their arrival. 

After a few months, when almost all their exams were done, he started to go with only one other of his friends. Lancelot had grown fond of the mythology books they kept near the back, so it was often Lancelot who accompanied him. He never went by himself. This meant that now he had significantly less reason to venture to the library, which made him a little sad, although Merlin's smile always seemed twice as happy when he did show up. He asked Morgana to come with him once or twice, and she and Merlin got along very well, but she had other things to occupy herself with, so he knew he couldn't keep asking her help. A small part of him knew that if he wanted to talk to Merlin, he should be brave and go alone, or even ask if he wanted to hang out outside working hours, but doing that seemed more terrifying than it should have. It seemed to make his feelings towards the librarian all the more real and all the more frightening. So he stopped going as regularly and went only when he was with someone else, even though it left him feeling sort of empty. 

Morgana told their father about Gwen the week before the summer holidays ended. Both Arthur and Morgana expected Uther to explode, to call her disgusting and deny that what she felt for Gwen was love, but he did almost the opposite. His eyes misted over a little, and he thanked her for telling him in a very soft voice. Then he hugged her tightly and asked if she would mind him meeting her, and Morgana's beam made Arthur's entire week less dreadful. His reaction somehow made Arthur feel lighter, as if there was a barrier from something that had been broken down and his mind and emotions were less clogged up and guarded. That same day, he visited the library on his own, feeling a burst of confidence, with a plan to ask Merlin if he wanted to get lunch with him one day. When he was met with the shy grimace of Mordred instead, he couldn’t help but be a little disappointed, but decided that now he was out, he should do something other than stay at home watching TV. So he called Elyan and spent a couple of hours playing video games with him and Gwen. Merlin was temporarily forgotten as soon as Gwen ordered pizzas. 

Later that evening, after a text from Gwaine asking if Arthur could cover his shift at the florist while he and Percival "got some stuff done" (complete with the winky face), Arthur got to see Merlin after all. Two streets away from the little shop where Gwaine spent evenings selling flowers to cityfolk of all ages, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. He turned around and saw Merlin smiling at him, glasses off, with his hair tucked under a grey knitted hat. In the light of late evening, his face glowed a soft orange and his freckles appeared more clearly over his nose, and his icy eyes glinted under the sun as he breathed out a quiet “hi”, making Arthur’s heart flutter. They stood in the middle of the street, facing each other and exchanging smiles until Merlin caught his breath and asked to know why Arthur hadn’t been visiting the library so often. Arthur mumbled something about not needing to go back after his exams, and when Merlin’s smile drooped a little he rushed to add that he had been there earlier to ask if he wanted to get lunch one day. He seemed to brighten at that, and they agreed to meet up the next day. The rest of the evening flew by and the morning came with no hindrance. 

At about midday, Arthur met Merlin outside the cafe where Percival worked mornings, and they spent a good amount of time in there slowly learning more about each other over coffee and cake. They then sat in the park for hours, talking and laughing as if they had known each other for their whole lives. In the moment, Arthur ignored how his face would flush whenever Merlin touched him, but he found himself craving more of that simple contact from him. Whether it was a playful shove or a slight touch of Merlin's hand on his, he loved it. He didn't stop thinking about the moment when they fell silent and suddenly Merlin had rested his head against Arthur's shoulder and Arthur's heartbeat had increased significantly. His fingers lay resting on his cheek where Merlin had kissed at his door for a long time before Arthur fell asleep. His heart didn't stop racing for his whole walk home, or even when he got home. When he did fall asleep, he dreamt of Merlin's smiling face in the warm glow of a summer evening, and his own fingers tracing patterns with his freckles. 

The feelings started to scare him a little. They still didn't have a name, but Arthur was beginning to suspect. After that day he stayed away from the library, hoping that the feelings might die down if he didn't see Merlin. 

They didn't. They only pushed themselves to the front of his mind and occupied every spare space in his brain. All his thoughts were of Merlin, and his smile and his eyes and his laugh and his soft hands. How his freckles showed up more clearly when he blushed, and how he tucked his hair behind his ear when he was embarrassed. His collection of paper scraps filled with doodles and notes and lines of poetry that he added to whenever he got a spare moment, which weren't all perfect but they were special because he had created them. The yelping sound he made when he didn't realise how far down his nose his glasses had slipped, and they finally slid off and landed in front of him. The way his eyes lit up when Arthur or one of his friends brought him anything from the shop before they got to work, though that had been before the end of exams. His absentminded humming as he sorted through books. How happy he seemed when he was asked about his university subjects and the far off look he got as he flew into avid detail about a topic he loved. The sideways look and the quirk of the lip he gave Arthur sometimes when someone else was speaking, that seemed very private and special, like it was only for him. He was like a work of art, made up of lots of vivid colours and strokes of a brush, and everything he said was like music. It was a very new, very overwhelming feeling, but still Arthur refused to label what exactly it was. 

Even after two weeks of staying away from the library and Merlin, Arthur didn't know what to call his feeling. Even as he entered the library for the first time in those two weeks, barely minutes before closing time as the sun began to lower behind the city and the sky was swept over with the sunset palette of colours, filling the library with pools of golden light making the dust particles look like magic spells being cast among the shelves, he hadn't named it. As he strode through the building, calling Merlin's name quietly when he didn't see him immediately, he felt more nervous than he ever had in his life. Upon seeing the dark-haired librarian's face appear around the back of a shelf, he felt his heart begin to thud more violently than he had felt before, and he barely heard his own voice over the thumping in his ears. The words he blurted out, a breathy, "can I kiss you?" sounded feeble in his ears. But then Merlin was nodding and he was leaning down and everything became a blur. Nothing mattered but the feel of Merlin's soft hair under his fingers and Merlin's lips moving against his in an almost tentative way, and his occasional heavy breaths, and his hands finding home on Arthur's waist. All sense of time was lost on both of them, and they stayed, kissing slowly surrounded by shelves and shelves of dusty books, letting out gasps of air in between, basking in the rose coloured light and each learning something completely new about the other. Arthur's thoughts were a jumbled mess; he felt as if there were fireworks going off in his stomach and everything but Merlin slipped away. Seconds went by, then minutes. They only moved apart from each other when Arthur's phone rang, shocking their mouths away from each other, but they continued to hold each other's gaze for a few brief moments before Arthur moved his hand to his pocket to check who was calling for him. It was his father, asking if he would be home soon, and he supposed that he should be. The sun wouldn't stay up forever, no matter how much he wished time could have stopped for them. So he assured his father he would be back in ten minutes, and with a final brush of his fingers against Merlin's cheek and a promise to come back tomorrow, he left the library, feeling as if his whole body was on fire. 

When he got home, he dashed straight up to his room, buried his face in his pillow and began to breathe in and out deeply, and slowly, periodically pinching himself to check that he wasn't dreaming. He half expected panic to hit him any moment, or regret, but neither of them did. All he felt was warm rushes of joy, and try as he might he could not wipe the grin off his face. He curled up into a ball with his eyes shut tight, picturing Merlin's startled expression at his request, how his eyes fluttered open when they finally broke away from each other, his smile after Arthur said he'd be back tomorrow. He remembered how he had looked under the light of the evening sky, bathed in the rays of the sun and appearing to Arthur as something otherworldly and magical.  _ What a masterpiece,  _ he thought, going over every movement of his hands, every breath, every parting and reuniting of their lips. Every so often, he let a breathy, blissed out laugh escape him, almost able to feel the librarian's soft touch still on him. His mind whirled all night. Tomorrow could not come fast enough. 

There was no one in the library when he returned the next day. No one but Merlin. When he saw Arthur come in, his face broke into a huge smile that made Arthur weak at the knees, his heart picking up the thumping again and his chest exploding with sparks. As Merlin moved around his desk and over to him, placing his hands on either side of his face and pressing a short, sweet kiss to Arthur's smiling lips, he felt like another barrier had been lifted, and his mess of a mind suddenly became coherent. No more pushing his emotions down. No more hiding how he felt from himself. No more denial. He finally managed to put a name to the feeling he got whenever he saw Merlin, or thought about him. The fireworks, the warmth in his chest, the hopeless heart fluttering and inexplicable rushes of happiness that he had elected to ignore for weeks and months all meant something now. Suddenly, with Merlin's fingers in his hair and his grin locked onto Arthur's, he could explain everything. 

With one word. 

**Author's Note:**

> come chat to me on [tumblr](http://gxryking.tumblr.com/) about anything!


End file.
